Seared

by Suleikha Snyder

  “We are going to do this,” he promised, softly. Because fucking hell, what else was there to say? “We are going to make this work, Naya. I will never push you away from me again.”

  Her grin turned into a laugh and she moved to the edge of the bed. “Be realistic. You might. Because you're you. But I'll push back. And I'll come after you. Because I'm me.” She shrugged, as if this was some sort of simple declaration, but he saw the depth in the words even before she explained her logic. “After years of writing relationships, I finally get what it takes to be in one,” she said. “A lot of work, a lot of trust, but also a lot of give. We can't stop being who we are. Because then we'll lose what we each fell in love with. Would you want me if I really turned into the perfect sub?”

  “No.” His shudder was instantaneous. The idea of Naya waiting at his feet at all times and bending to his every command was so incongruous, so alien to everything that drew her to him. He liked taking care of her and mastering her in bed, but her perfection was in her imperfection. And he knew he would hardly hold the same appeal for her if he were to suddenly clean up his language and become a proper gentleman. “Then let's not make any vows or set any expectations,” he told her. “Let's just see where we go from here.”

  He was willing to give as well as to take. To allow them both room to fail or to grow. But first they had to leap the hurdles before them...beat the bloody obstacle course his father had set up for them.

  Lachlan sighed, taking off his reading glasses and dropping them on the pile of print-outs that still awaited his approval. They were set to see Wil at the restaurant in a matter of hours. A private meet-up in a public place. Nothing to see here. Just some chums playing catch-up. Never mind that he hardly knew Wil Karlsen and what they had to discuss wasn't precisely friendly. They'd decided it would be better than having Wil come to his place or to Naya's mother's brownstone. Neutral ground, such as it was.

  “You're making that face.” Naya had gone to grab a cardigan while he brooded. She looked like any young New York hipster ready to get on with her evening.

  “What face?” he wondered, finally climbing from the bed and making half an effort to be human.

  “The 'Guy Fieri Peed in My Artisanal Cheerios' face...which I've recently learned also applies to hot German friends of mine. Even if they've been nowhere near your cereal.”

  Oh, that face. Well, yes. Then her assessment was right on target. “This isn't my idea of a fun evening,” he agreed. “But it's necessary. The sooner we get this all sussed out and put into motion, the sooner I can go back to fucking you without a care in the world.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That's so romantic. I might swoon.”

  “The bed's right there.” He gestured with one hand. “Don't think I'll catch you.”

  But she didn't banter back. Instead, she tilted her head and studied him in that unnervingly astute way of hers. “You'll always catch me. We don't need vows or expectations for that. Because that's just the truth.”

  God, I love you. Wasn't it supposed to be some sort of lightning bolt moment? A revelation? An epiphany where the clouds parted and the sun shined down upon you? How could the words come to Lachlan so simply, so quietly, in a bedroom that still smelled like a bordello? He stared at her, tasting the three syllables. Sugar and chocolate silk. And he kept them on his tongue. Afraid to swallow and lose them. Afraid to speak and ruin them.

  It's all right, he told himself. This doesn't have to be anything. Not yet. They had time. They would see where life took them. Love would still be there after a dinner out.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  I'd barely spent 20 minutes in Calanais the first time. Now I had the pleasure-torture of sitting through a multi-course chef's tasting menu while Lock and Wil growled at each other across the best table in the house. Was this bacon-wrapped Hell? Quite possibly. They were both lucky I adored them.

  I'd hoped a face-to-face meeting would cool their jets but it hadn't happened yet. Apparently lamb meatballs in a heather ale sauce weren't enough to forge a peace accord and neither were four-cheese mac 'n' cheese squares with whiskey bechamel. Too bad, because both were delicious, and I wasn't letting the animosity ruin my appetite.

  It didn't help that Wil was upstaging Lachlan in his own restaurant. Sure, the other diners didn't recognize him as an actor, but they knew he was somebody. His natural charisma was just that strong. As were his looks. A six-foot-two god with a shock of golden-brown hair and dark, laughing eyes, and a ready smile. Heads turned when he walked by. Gazes latched onto him from across the room. He was one of those people you looked at because the alternative was to miss a breathtaking view. I was immune to it by now, but I had eyes. And my eyes also caught the silent posturing going on around me.

  After forty minutes of it, and a third of a bottle of excellent red wine for fortification, I hit my breaking point. “Oh my God,” I cried out in annoyance when the soup course was cleared. “Can you two just whip your dicks out and measure already?”

  “Mr. Christie here thinks you already know my numbers.” Wil was twinkling, the bastard. He enjoyed having the upper hand in his daily life, almost as much as he liked to give up control behind closed doors.

  Yes. The man causing my boyfriend to have green-eyed monster-induced conniptions was a certified submissive. Even if we'd hit it off sexually, our kink tastes meant we would never work out. Instead, we'd worked as a team: wingmanning each other as we looked for Doms to play with in the Cologne and Dusseldorf kinkster hotspots. Wil's tastes ran to older women who liked him in leather cuffs and nothing else. And my taste...well, it ran to a ginger-blond chef with a temper. And he had the grace to look at least a little sorry for being a jerk.

  “I don't think we'll need to compare,” Lachlan chuckled, glancing at Wil before looking back at me. “Besides, I prefer my dick spotted.”

  I cracked up. Yes, my annoyance was that easy to deflate. Tell me a good spotted dick joke and I was a goner. I choked back giggles against my palm, shaking my head. Jesus, Lock. You're a ridiculous, gorgeous, piece of work.

  “Neither of you have anything to worry about,” I reassured them, picking up my fork in anticipation of Guinness-braised short ribs with guava jelly. “There is no competition. The enemy is not at this table.”

  In fact, I was pretty sure Attwood was on the 'eject on sight' list. Along with Guy Fieri. Lachlan still hated that man with a fiery passion. And I couldn't say that I had particularly fuzzy feelings toward him myself.

  With our introductory courses and ice-breaker sniping out of the way, we got down to brass tacks. Wil explained just how close we would have to be to clone Attwood's phone, and then offered some devious back-up alternatives I'd never even heard of. The Liberal Arts, it turned out, left a lot of essential learning out.

  After much haggling and debate, Lachlan set up a meeting with our blackmailer for tomorrow evening, sending off the terse text messages while we lingered over the dessert course. Bourbon bread pudding with creme anglaise and candied ginger. I wanted to lick it from his mouth. And tear the phone from his hands.

  Couldn't we just have a happy-ever-after with no walls to scale, no villains to vanquish? Hadn't we been through enough? Yes, I was still angry about it. I felt like I would be angry until the end of time. We'd never hurt anyone—had barely had the chance to hurt each other—and now we were skulking around like criminals just to ensure we could love freely.

  Bullshit. I said it aloud, too. “This is bullshit, you know. None of this should be necessary.”

  Wil and Lachlan offered me matching shrugs that would, no doubt, horrify them. I drank my coffee down to the dregs and pretended it tasted sweet.

  “Ran's funeral was supposed to be the end of it,” I murmured, glad the acoustics of the restaurant meant none of our conversation had been overheard. “Instead, we didn't even stay to see him put in the ground. And we're dealing with blackmail. That is not how normal relationships play out. How normal families interact.”


  Wil leaned forward, swirling his single-malt in its tumbler. “'Normal' has a shifting definition, Naya. And it's overrated.” He glanced at Lachlan and then back at me, his dark brows winging together. “If there's one thing I've figured out about you two in the past few days, it's that you're not meant for 'normal.'”

  I half-expected Lock to erupt with rage at the assessment, or let loose some sort of snide retort. Instead, he reached over and clinked his tumbler with Wil's. “You've got that right,” he said, with a beautifully fierce expression. “We're meant for extraordinary.”

  My stomach did a funny flip. My breath caught. And I met his brilliant blue eyes like I was seeing them for the first time. Oh, God. Michael Bolton help us all. I was so screwed. I was going to love Lachlan Christie for the rest of my life and well into the next one.

  Hours later, when we were curled up in bed, Lachlan frowned down at me. Wearing That Face again. “Are you quite certain you and that appallingly good-looking beast of a man never...?”

  I elbowed him in the ribs. “I told you. He's never seen me naked.”

  He quirked an eyebrow, giving me a once-over. Okay, so I was still wearing my dress. Hiked up and unzipped, but technically clothed. I huffed. Men. No, Wil had never seen me like this either. But it wasn't for me to explain to Lock. It was less invasive to talk about my friend's illegal obsession with computers and networks than it was to discuss his kinks. And they were many. A few had intersected with mine, which was why he'd been my tour guide in the German club scene, but the rest were all Wil. His to share or his to keep secret. “We're not like that,” I said, before Lachlan could grow too impatient. And I thought of what I could divulge without betraying Wil's trust. “I think he's hung up on someone.” I settled for something he didn't even know himself. “He broods. A lot. Whoever she is, she really got to him.”

  Lock flopped back against his pillows, making dramatic choking noises. “Brooding. Good God. It really is an epidemic.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  He could step onto a soundstage with no compunctions. He'd done cooking competitions without breaking a sweat. Health Department inspections didn't get his back up. For all his reputation for having a temper, Lachlan prided himself on his calm and control. When things were important, he didn't lose his head.

  The dinner tete-a-tete had gone well—especially if you considered that he'd stopped wanting to brain the hulking German soap god somewhere between the bisque and the short ribs. And Wil had met them in midtown this morning with all the spy gear he hadn't brought to Calanais. Everything seemed ready to go off without a hitch.

  And yet, today, he was fucking terrified.

  Because everything was riding on this. The real everything. Not a TV show or a Michelin star. His and Naya's future was more vital. He'd had no idea just how much more until recently. Until he'd been smacked in the face by that one little—yet so all-encompassing—word.

  They had to pull this off. They had to cut the ropes that tied them to the past. Because he wanted to spend tomorrow and next week and the next ten years making Naya happy.

  Naya, who was here at the appointed meeting location with one of Wil's devices in her purse. They'd made love until dawn...and then made love again until his alarm squawked at 7AM. And despite spending most of the morning together and reconvening with her felonious friend, they'd soon gone their separate ways. “Preparations,” she'd said before hopping on the subway to Brooklyn. “Things to do.”

  He had to give her credit. If he hadn't known her, in the biblical sense, he wouldn't have recognized her. His body was attuned to hers, and he felt her presence in the fine hairs that stood on end across his arms. But his eyes...? They had to look twice.

  Because in Naya's place sat a demure South Asian co-ed, fresh off the boat. Her thick black hair was plaited, shining with a touch of coconut oil that he could catch the scent of from two tables away.

  Tiny gold button earrings sat in the lobes of her ears. She wore a simple but expensive green tunic and matching pants. A patterned scarf wrapped round her slender throat. What should have made her stand out amidst the sea of hipsters and businessmen that populated the bustling bar patios of Stone Street was actually genius camouflage. She looked like any other fish-out-of-water recent immigrant to New York, sipping at a coffee and paging through a Hindi-to-English dictionary.

  Brilliant. Gorgeous. No wonder she'd insisted on making her own way to the meeting spot. And Lachlan couldn't afford to blow her ruse. So he fixed his gaze on his smartphone, pretending the screen full of apps was somehow more riveting than the sight of his woman. And he had to remember that it was that woman he was fighting for. Her. Him. Their future. No trumped-up sex scandal was going to dirty something so beautiful.

  As if on cue, his hackles rose. A different awareness than that of Naya. It was a chill, a lurch of his stomach. And then Kyle Attwood was sliding onto the empty bench across from him, face as florid as if he'd just come from five rounds at the pub. Since there were at least five that lined the cobblestone street, it was entirely possible he had. And that was more than enough speculation about the man's non-blackmail activities. Lock had no desire to think of him in any context at all.

  “So you've finally decided we can come to terms? It took you long enough.” Attwood crowed, or perhaps sniggered. Either way, it wasn’t a noise Lachlan liked. “I was worried I would have to release the footage.”

  He did his best to look bored. “Worried? Please. If you're going to blackmail me, at least have the courtesy to be honest. You would love to sell that filth to the highest bidder. You likely have TMZ on speed-dial.”

  Attwood shrugged, neither confirming nor denying his greed. “This is courtesy, Lachlan. I'm following Ranulf's instructions to the letter. If it were up to me, we would've used this ammunition while he was still alive.”

  “And risk his reputation? Not hardly.” He couldn't help but feel a slight bit of satisfaction. The attorney thought he knew Ran so well, did he? No. His father never would've allowed himself to be tainted by scandal. It was likely part and parcel of why he'd forced his son and stepdaughter apart. On the off-chance someone might think it indecent. Ironic, considering the true ugliness existed within Ran...and his minions.

  Just who was this man so committed to his and Naya’s destruction? Wil had ferreted out the generalities and was still working on the nasty underpinnings. Kyle Attwood was forty-two. Raised upper-middle class in Connecticut. Fair marks at law school, 3.6 GPA from university. Single. Nothing that set off alarm bells. And, to Lock, that only meant there was something to hide.

  He crossed his arms over his chest, giving the lawyer his flintiest glare. The one that made cooking show contestants piss themselves in fear. “I don't have all day. Get on with it.”

  He was satisfied when Attwood shifted on the bench, face paling. But the man scrambled for his smug bravado and recouped it as he set a small flash drive on the table. “It's simple. You stay away from Ms. Kopekar Christie for a period of ten years and funnel thirty percent of your annual earnings into the Christie Foundation. In exchange, I will furnish you with the material we've collected.”

  “Furnish me?” he repeated, arching one eyebrow. “What precisely does that mean?” At the edge of his peripheral vision he could see Naya, her shoulders suddenly up around her ears, tight with tension. “How much of this shit do you have squirreled away?”

  He half-expected a “That's for me to know and you to find out.” But Attwood either wasn't that confident or not that bright. He boasted instead. “Just enough. Ranulf didn't want to risk a hard copy falling into the wrong hands, so he vetoed my idea of placing thumb drives in safety deposit boxes around the country. A shame, really. Because I think I would've liked to see you run around looking for them.”

  “Fuck you,” Lachlan said, no longer worried about riling the idiot up. They'd certainly sat there long enough for Naya to clone his phone. “But I'll agree to your terms. Sign over my profits. All of that garbage. Under
one condition.”

  Kyle—not that he really wanted to think of the prat in such casual terms—smirked. “You're not really in the position to ask for conditions,” he pointed out.

  “I don't fucking care,” Lock replied without skipping a beat. “This is nonnegotiable. If you're going to nail me to the wall, you're bloody fucking well going to do one thing I ask.”

  The other man looked skeptical but nodded tightly. “What is it?”

  He leaned forward, one palm flat on the tabletop, the other hand curling around the good-faith flash drive. “None of this touches Naya. Ever. You don't talk to her. You don't contact her. You don't look at her. You don't even fucking think about her. You hear me?”

  Kyle Attwood goddamn Esquire tipped back his head and laughed. “And you think I'm the one screwing you? She's got you by the short hairs. It's pathetic. You should thank me for splitting you two up.”

  A red veil dropped over Lachlan's eyes. Blood rushed against his eardrums. He'd never wanted to strangle someone so badly. He gritted his teeth, curled his itching fingers into fists, and silently counted to ten. When he was feeling marginally less murderous, he spoke what he hoped were his last words to his father's attorney. “I'll thank you to get the fuck out of my sight.”

  * * *

  I wanted to smash the bastard's face. But I stayed in character until he left. I wasn't an actress by any stretch, but my performance was fucking flawless. Kyle Attwood never knew that Lachlan Christie's kinky stepsister sat well within earshot. But, oh, on the inside I vibrated with rage and disgust. I was nearly sick with it, a half-hour after Kyle sat down and forty seconds after he left. How was this fair? What did he get out of playing with our lives this way? We'd never done a thing to him. And we'd only ever offended Ranulf by being born. And falling in love.

  No one had a right to judge us for that. We weren't blood related. We'd never touched each other while I was underage. We'd followed every painful, heartbreaking rule. Until now. When it didn't matter anymore.